LYNN HAVEN — A company running public paratransit service announced it’s quitting, leaving a county board scrambling to fill the void by Dec. 31.

The service, Bay Area Transportation, runs no fixed route and primarily ferries the elderly back and forth to medical appointments. It’s currently run by the Tri-County Community Council in Bonifay, which has held the contract since November 2003.

A representative for Tri-County, which operates public transportation in several other counties, said Wednesday it is dropping the contract because it’s losing money. The contract ran through the end of June, but it could be dissolved on 30 days notice.

The company is in the final year of a five-year contract and some big costs will hit between January and June, so it was wise for the company to pull out now, executive director Joel Paul said in an interview Wednesday.

Paul had just come out of a Bay County Transportation Planning Organization (TPO) meeting where board members mulled how to fill the void on short notice.

The service runs on a budget of about $1.5 million with 40 vehicles — cars, vans and buses — which the TPO owns. The key will be finding a new operating company and a new nonprofit or government entity to act as a conduit for federal and state grant money. As a nonprofit, Tri-County could receive that money, but on short notice a similar company might not be available.

The TPO believes most of the logistics will be relatively easy, transitioning equipment and employees over to a new operator. But it wants to find a new operator quickly, by December, so it can ease it into the takeover. The current trolley operator, Santa Ynez Valley Transportation Services, and trolley manager, First Transit, are possible options.

One wrinkle is the flow of state and federal grant money. The TPO needs a nonprofit or government entity to handle the grant money; otherwise it likely will miss out on $300,000 in matching funds.

The county already has taken on this conduit role with the fixed-route trolley system, but it may not want this similar job for the public paratransit service because it doesn’t pay. If the county refuses the request, which it will likely vote on at its Nov. 5 meeting, the TPO may be in a bind.

“I don’t think we have a plan B,” TPO Chairman Rodney Friend said in the meeting.

The only other option would be to bring in a private company to run the service and receive the money, but the TPO would forfeit the $300,000.

After the meeting, County Manager Ed Smith said he was unsure if the county would want the extra responsibility. He noted Tri-County’s representative gave no specifics on the number of staff needed and hours needed for the conduit role.

“It really depends on workload, and it doesn’t sound like it’s significant — the way he laid it out — but it was so generalized that I don’t know. Until you get into the weeds and really find out, I’m not sure,” he said.

Friend was confident a solution would be reached and the service would continue.

“It will certainly work out because I can assure you that I’ll work as hard as I need to to make it work,” he said.